Walter Bagehot has been honoured by the installation of a number of conventional memorials. His Langport gravesite is a listed building, described as the ‘Bagehot Monument’. His widow endowed a stained glass window dedicated to his memory in All Saints’ Church in Langport. There’s a plaque in Langport on the building where he was born, and one in London on a house that he lived in for 8 years in the 1860s. Langport’s Town Garden was renamed after him, and houses a large interpretation board about his life.
However, Bagehot is unusual in having something less conventional named after him – an asteroid! Also uncommonly, a quote from him appeared on a commemorative coin made for the London Olympic Games. The Economist, which he edited from 1861-1877, has a regular column called ‘Bagehot’, or ‘Bagehot’s Notebook’, as if he were still writing in the newspaper today.
Bagehot is also notable in that many academic institutions honour his name in their current work, proving that his writings and insights are still relevant. In America, Columbia University awards an academic fellowship called the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism, and Yale University has a project researching the management of financial crises called the New Bagehot Project. In the UK, the Political Studies Association annually awards the Walter Bagehot Prize for the best dissertation in the field of government and public administration. Queen Mary University of London used to hold an annual Bagehot Lecture, but these appear to have lapsed.